Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, son of Spanish actor, convicted of murdering and dismembering Colombian plastic surgeon.
A court docket in Thailand has sentenced a Spanish chef to life in jail for murdering and dismembering a Colombian man on the vacationer island of Koh Phangan.
On Thursday, the Koh Samui Provincial Court docket stated in an announcement that Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, a 30-year-old chef with a YouTube channel, was discovered responsible of murdering Colombian plastic surgeon Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, chopping up and concealing his physique.
The homicide happened in August 2023 whereas Sancho and Arrieta had been holidaying on Koh Phangan, the pair having agreed to fulfill on-line. The trial heard that Sancho chopped up 44-year-old Arrieta’s physique and put the elements in plastic luggage earlier than distributing them across the island.
Sancho, who’s from a well-known Spanish appearing household, denied premeditated homicide, however acknowledged dismembering the sufferer’s physique and disposing of the elements on land and at sea.
The defence argued that Sancho acted in respectable self-defence after Arrieta tried to drive him to have intercourse, the latter falling and hitting his head on a bath, dropping consciousness after which dying.
The case got here to mild when garbage collectors discovered what the Bangkok Publish newspaper described as a sawn-off pelvis and intestines weighing about 5kg (11 kilos) in a fertiliser sack.
Shortly after that, Sancho reported to police that Arrieta was lacking. Thai police then gathered proof linking the 2 males, detaining and interrogating the chef.
Police obtained surveillance video displaying Sancho allegedly buying a knife, rubber gloves, garbage luggage and cleansing options at a comfort retailer earlier than Arrieta’s demise, which prosecutors claimed bolstered the cost of premeditated homicide.
Well-known household
The case has generated huge curiosity in Spain as a result of the defendant’s father, Rodolfo Sancho, is a famend actor and dozens of Spanish reporters had flown in for the trial.
The court docket initially sentenced Sancho to demise however commuted the punishment to life imprisonment as a result of account he gave of the occasions throughout cross-examination, ordering him to pay 4.4 million baht (about $130,000) to Arrieta’s household.
Bussakorn Kaewleeled, a lawyer for the sufferer’s household, stated they had been “happy with the sentence as a result of he can be put in jail for all times they usually obtain some monetary compensation”.
Carmen Balfagon, a lawyer representing the Sancho household, stated: “We didn’t count on it [the life sentence], however we should settle for what Thai justice has stated, we’ve to respect it.”
In his closing assertion, Sancho advised the court docket he regretted his actions. “I’m sorry {that a} life has been misplaced and that oldsters have misplaced a son,” Sancho was quoted as saying by the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Beneath sure circumstances, Sancho can apply to be repatriated to serve the rest of his jail time period again house after a number of years of imprisonment in Thailand, in response to a treaty between Thailand and Spain.
